Additionally, neratinib was found to be active in HER2-Positive, HR-Negative breast cancer

HealthDay News — Neratinib and veliparib-carboplatin appear to be effective in women with specific subtypes of breast cancer, according to two studies published online July 6 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

John W. Park, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues compared standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus neratinib with common control therapy. Data were included for eligible women from the I-SPY 2 trial, which categorized participants according to 8 biomarker subtypes on the basis of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status, hormone receptor status, and risk according to a 70-gene profile. The researchers found that patients with HER2-positive, hormone-receptor-negative cancer had a mean estimated rate of pathological complete response of 56 and 33% among the 115 patients in the neratinib group and 78 controls, respectively. In phase 3 testing, the final predictive probability of success was 79%.

Hope S. Rugo, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues evaluated veliparib-carboplatin plus standard therapy for HER2-negative tumors in 3 signatures among eligible participants from the I-SPY 2 trial. The researchers found that veliparib-carboplatin had an 88% predictive probability of success in a phase 3 trial with respect to triple-negative breast cancer. The estimated rates of pathological complete response in a triple-negative population were 51 and 26% in the 72 patients randomized to receive veliparib-carboplatin and the 44 assigned to control therapy, respectively.